I travel very frequently, to the Ghats or rivers or mountains; nature was and is a huge source of inspiration for me. So this time around I decided to go to the land of the Himalayas, Nepal. To go to Nepal, Indians don’t need passport, just a voter id card is enough. We i.e. three of us took a train from Bangalore, sorry swalpa adjust maadi, Bengaluru to New Delhi and subsequently was supposed to fly from New Delhi to Kamandhu. All was well, reached Delhi, checked into a place at South Ex, had a couple of pegs of good ale and super excited about the flight next day i.e. a Sunday morning.
Scene change
Sunday morning - Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi 08.45 hours As we were producing our e tickets at the gate, I realised I have left my voter id card at Bengaluru and happily come off to Delhi without it. Need I say more? A lot of pleading and drama happened, but to no effect, they wouldn’t budge! I whipped my drivers license, old identity cards, atm cards from nationalised banks, everything possible! But no…Without voter id card, no permit into Nepal or even inside the airport. You know how it is to realise you’re royally f****** up? Well…I knew it then. My dear friend Mr Menon had wonderful ideas like flying to B’lore on Sunday, getting it from home and flying back to Delhi and taking the same flight next day. It was a fantastic idea, just that the idea’s cost was 28 grand, so that was out of question. The next idea seemed better, Mr Menon’s roommate could courier the card to Delhi and I could fly on Tuesday morning with it while the other’s go the same idea.
So there I was, stuck in Delhi for 2 more days when the dearest of my friends flew to Katmandhu…questions were many, do I really deserve to go on this trip after being so irresponsible? What am I good at? Anyway…reconciled myself and went to another friend’s room at JNU and was waiting for my friend to courier the id card from B’lore. I was waiting and waiting and waiting, but no calls! All couriers closed on a Sunday and the earliest I can get it is by Tuesday sometime! How screwed can I get??? When something goes wrong, the entire world conspires against you. By 12 noon on a Sunday when I should be on my flight to Nepal, I was sitting in a hostel room in Delhi counting every second. Losing 2 or 3 days and reaching Nepal is a bad idea, so yes...let them go, I will go to Dharamshala and drown my sorrow there, I told myself battling hope.
Scene Change again
You know how people are when they have nothing to lose, they will try everything to make it happen. I put up a status message on facebook saying ‘if anybody is flying from B’lore to Delhi today or tomorrow, please get to me at the earliest’. I put this up at 12.05 pm and by 12.10 somebody responded that his friend is flying to Helsinki from Delhi the next day morning and that his friend is flying to Delhi from B’lore in 2 hours time!!! Life was moving super fast. Courier plans cancelled, put the people in B’lore in touch, rest before I know my voter id was on an airplane coming to dear papa. By the same evening, went to the Delhi airport, got my voter id card, literally fell on the girl’s feet and ran to the Indigo counter to see if I can get a ticket for Monday morning in the same flight instead of Tuesday. Got it, mischief done, got myself a ticket for Monday morning and hit a hotel nearby waiting and praying that nothing more goes wrong. I couldn’t believe what had happened; it was a stroke of sheer luck to put up that status update and even luckier to have a bug network out there in a social networking site!
Nothing went wrong the next day morning, everything was just perfect and beautiful…I checked in on time, had a good coffee, boarded the flight and I was on my way to my much needed break…from people I know, from cities I know, from everything into a new place where my phone doesn’t work and getting online is not an addiction. While on board I was lost in what I day I left behind. I understood the power of facebook, I understood that one can never know who comes and helps you when in trouble and beyond everything I understood I have been very very lucky and that the Universe didn’t conspire against me in actuality. I had my faith restored. What happened in Nepal is an entirely different chapter and I can write a book on it, but as of now…let me just celebrate this blog post of mine after more than half a year. I was searching for a worthy come back and I guess this experience is worthy enough. I have lived life and I am living, its difficult to do so, most of them just exist.
